∼ Aftermath ∼

Chapter - 036

Coming to in a mind-numbing haze of pain, filled with reds and greens, Eric could only make what sounded even to him as a pitiful whine. He wasn't actually sure what he had wanted to say. He had just needed to know that at least some part of him still worked. That he hadn't already passed on to purgatory to surrender to whichever dreaded ancient god that fancied his soul...

But no, there were no demons, nor monstrous amalgamations to meet. He might've briefly thought the virtuous judges had sought to claim him, as what was before bloodshot eyes were the fuzzy sight of what Eric could only describe as an angel.

An angel conjuring a soothing green from the very palms of her hands, clad in dirtied clothes and smudged with the weary of many days worth of travel. Yet, an angel nonetheless.

"∼Eric," It echoed distantly in his ears. "∼Eric, do you hear me?"

With each passing second, the haze would lessen, but so would the pain intensify.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to listen to the voice, as the bliss of oblivion was a more comforting refuge for his mind than the bleak and painful reality of his body. But Eric did not shy away. He had never been afraid of pain. And he wouldn't begin being so now.

"Eric, please. Stay awake."

There it was again, the voice, guiding him out of the mire of his mind. The promise of light at the end of the tunnel, a voice echoing through its distant and hollow span.

It was finally then, he made out a fiery mane of red and a freckled face. The angel turned out to be Aria. His initial guess - to which Eric had to be honest; had not been so far from being true as in his eyes, Aria was as close to an angel as one could be.

She was fussing over him, her glowing hands moving in an intricate dance over his body. He was being healed. Though he failed to grasp the complexity of her work. Wherever her hands would pass, an ever-present itch would follow, setting forth new surges of agony that had him expel his guts more than once.

He was a mess, laying in the gunge of his own blood and vomit.

Yet Aria did not seem to even flinch away at the sight. Despite the worry and panic, her ruby-red eyes were as hard as stone as they scoured his broken body and ashen face. So odd, she was.

Kind and timid. Curious and naive. Dedicated and fervent. Broken and melancholic.

She was many things, never just one side of a coin, with something lying underneath all that care.

But in that singular moment, she was beautiful more than anything.

Passing out multiple times over the course of the next couple of hours, despite his best efforts, Eric woke not to the agony of his dying and mangled body, but a canopy of a day's waning light and the song of birds.

His mind was briefly spiked with alarm when he turned his head to stare directly into the beady eyes of the barkjaw turtle. But its distant and hollowed gaze quickly resurfaced his memories of their triumph.

Fatigue and exhaustion racked his body. His muscles did not heed his call, and a steady pain came from every inch of his flesh.

His body felt as if it had been run over a stampede of horses, then chewed and spit out by monsters. But despite his body's incredible soreness and worrying unresponsiveness, he understood that he was hale. Aria had performed a miracle. Saving him, a person who had not ought to survive.

As the elf came to mind, he looked for her. It took only another turn of his head to find the girl sitting against the tree next to him, cradling a sleeping demon in her lap.

He tried to call out to her, but his throat clenched with pain and dryness, conjuring nothing more than a hoarse cough.

Jerking at the sudden noise, Aria raised her head. "E-Eric... you are okay ha-I am glad." She said, weakly.

He could not see much from underneath her hood, but he could make out the weakness in her voice alone. It would seem that he wasn't the only one the healing had taken a toll on.

"You're okay?" He groaned, working his throat into actual speech this time.

"I am fine, just very fatigued..." She tried for a smile. "Actually, my s-skills almost all increased and I even gained two levels. I am level twenty now..."

"Two levels?!" Eric blurted out, his face grimacing as his abdomen protested against the sudden exclamation.

"I-I..." She paused, looking hesitant - almost perturbed.

"What?" Eric encouraged.

"I was very desperate to save you... it would seem that it has granted me a breakthrough." She stopped, her voice going slightly broken. "I really thought you were going to d-die... as your wounds were gravely beyond my abilities to save."

She held up her small hands, shaky and even more pale than usual. "I used everything. I-I do not even know I could still keep going. I just... did?"

What Aria was saying wasn't unheard of. At least the part of her desperation causing a breakthrough. It was actually often that someone would break through whatever bottleneck or limiter had been put on their growth. But Eric knew that was not what troubled Aria. Besides the pale from exhaustion, she looked more so pale from dread.

"Is something wrong?"

Suddenly hiding her hands into the long sleeves of her robe, as if she wanted to hide something, she shook her head. "I-uh... no. Nothing is wrong..."

Eric saw through her like glass. But he did not pry. After all, she had saved his life. For what more could he ask?

"By the way - how did you even get me loose?" Eric cast a glance at the huge turtle, the memory of its ramming into him and crushing his body in between the tree. How it had only partially loosened the pin on his body as it slumped down in its death.

"It took a little while, but luckily you were not that stuck. The tree roots held up most of the barkjaw's weight."

"Yeah... lucky me I guess," Eric murmured self-deprecatingly, noting if had really been lucky, then in the first place, he wouldn't have been crushed at all.

At the turn of evening, both Aria and Eric had gotten some brief rest, to the point where both were back on their feet. Eric was especially sore, but he could easily fight through the pain. It was just Aria who had to take it slow since she was exhausted from something she called mana-deprivation.

But it had been time for them to leave, as it was too dangerous to stay. The subject of the turtle's remains did come up, but Aria has assured Eric that there was nothing of value on the barkjaw. Other than its flesh underneath its bark exterior which should be very flavorful, there wasn't anything they could harvest from it. Besides, it wasn't like they even had the means to do so and then summarily transport it.

They were out looking for the buck that had bolted away after the turtle's appearance. Fortunately for them, the horse had sprained one of its legs, making it lame. Though that might not sound like something to be joyous of, the fact remained that it was probably the only reason why they had been able to catch up to it after only a short search.

It took a little before Aria was in any shape to fix up the horse, and she even passed out this time from overusing her magic. Eric realized that he could not push her any further, even if she kept saying she was fine. He knew she wasn't. Aria just knew they were still being pursued by those black-clothed men, and they've already lost so much time with the incident of the barkjaw.

Regardless, Eric refused to make Aria go any further without some proper rest. So even though it was dusk by then, they set up camp. Besides, they had quite a few things to address. Such as the fact not only Nyx had reached level 10, but so had Eric also.

Nyx was practically bouncing in place. His skill's advancement, [Demonbolt], had lit a fire under the demon. Conjuring the spell now, resulted in a much deeper purple flame that packed a punch more than twice as powerful as its previous iteration. With that, the promise of new and greater power from evolving in tales and stories from Aria had been an ongoing source of aspiration. And now with him having reached the fabled level 10, he could finally taste a sip of the power that was rightfully his!

Initially, he had been rather furious that the two humans had refused him to accept the prompt of evolution immediately, but eventually, the food magician's logic of the danger they were in had won over his eagerness. Grudgingly.

But now, it was time.

Aria removed her treasured grimoire from her rucksack, laying it out on her lap. "Let us start with Eric."

"Wha-?" Both Eric and Nyx blurted out, cutting themselves off to glare at each other.